


If I take your hand, I might lead you down the path to ruin

by shinewithalltheuntold



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Dark Swan Arc, F/F, Season Five Speculation, friendship/pre-romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-07
Updated: 2015-09-07
Packaged: 2018-04-17 22:42:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 859
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4684031
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shinewithalltheuntold/pseuds/shinewithalltheuntold
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post Dark Swan speculation. So vague it doesn't even require a spoiler warning. Just a little idea that wouldn't leave me alone until I wrote it down.</p>
            </blockquote>





	If I take your hand, I might lead you down the path to ruin

She didn’t speak to anyone because there was nothing to say.

Almost two weeks since the darkness had been taken _ripped torn_ from her and she hadn’t said a word to anyone. 

But she had listened. She listened to Killian tell her it wasn’t her fault. She listened to her parents tell her how proud they were of her for fighting the Dark One as hard as she did. She listened to Henry tell her that he loved her.

She listened but what she heard was ‘happy ending’ and ‘savior’ and ‘light magic’ and ‘best chance’, and what she felt was the weight of expectation and the bitter taste of failure and their overwhelming need to relieve her of responsibility.

There was one person she hadn’t listened to, though. She couldn’t, because Regina didn’t say anything. She came every day and sat by the bed, for minutes and for hours, but she never spoke a word. She just sat, her hand resting on top of the blanket, always in the same place. Some days Emma rolled onto her side and ignored her. Some days she placed her own hand close to Regina’s. Yesterday she spent an hour with their hands side by side, the barest whisper between them, just staring. Their hands, so powerful, capable of such bright light and such terrible, horrible darkness. And when Regina finally stood to go, she fought against the sudden desperate urge to grab at that hand, to clutch it tightly and pull Regina to her and never ever let go. Instead she lay perfectly still, not flinching even when Regina reached out and brushed a strand of hair from her face, the backs of her fingers lingering just a moment against her cheek. And when Regina left she fell into a troubled sleep, dreams and memories and dark magic and Regina with tears in her eyes and bright white shining from her hands and I won’t let you go and she didn’t and she pulled out the Dark One but now there is just a hole and a fear of the light that they want her to let back in that she knows is going to burn her alive. And she wakes the next morning with her throat raw and her mother at her side with a tear stained face and she knows that she hasn’t been completely silent these past two weeks.

Her mother leaves eventually to care for Neal _her brother their second chance maybe he won’t be a screw up like her_ and Henry comes but he has school and can’t stay and then it is lunch time and she eats because they put the food in front of her and then she lies back down and waits for Regina to come sit by her bed and put her hand on the blanket and not speak and just sit with her in the darkness that floods her room in the bright light of the afternoon.  
Except this time Regina doesn’t come empty-handed. She comes with what Emma thinks at first is Henry’s storybook. But when she looks closer it is blank on the front. She doesn’t want to show interest, doesn’t want to be pulled back into this world where she can feel and hurt and bleed, but Regina is still silent and still sitting with her hand on the blanket so she tentatively reaches for the book and opens it to the first page.

_Once upon a time, the darkness tasted a girl, and he liked it so much, he swallowed her whole…_

Regina’s handwriting. And as Emma continues to read, enraptured, Regina’s story. All of it, nothing held back. A young girl’s descent into rage and revenge and madness, and an Evil Queen’s torturous road back to the light. Emma reads and reads, doesn’t notice when the sun goes down and Regina turns on the bedside lamp, doesn’t notice when her father comes to bring her dinner and stops short when he sees the tears streaming down her face _she hasn’t cried since they freed her_ and, after exchanging a long look with Regina backs slowly out of the room, doesn’t notice when it isn’t just Regina’s hand resting on the blanket but Regina herself. Not until she reaches the last page, the ink not blurred despite all the water marks dotting the paper and…

_…Regina tasted the light, and she liked it so much, she decided to share it with the people she loved._

_Come back, Emma. Come home._

Emma looks up. Regina’s eyes are bright and tear-filled; she doesn’t smile. She knows that Emma isn’t ready for smiles or laughter or joy. She just holds out her hand.

Emma stares at it a moment. She’s not ready for smiles or laughter or joy. She’s not sure she’s ready for hope. But…maybe…she’s ready to hold someone’s hand. 

She slides her hand into Regina’s. Soft and warm. She squeezes tight.

“Okay,” she whispers, because after two weeks that’s all she can manage. She holds even tighter. “Don’t let go.”

And now Regina smiles. A small smile, but tender and loving and full of understanding.

“Never.”


End file.
